Reply #32: Having worked in medical research for 10 years before changing careers....

[Lisa0825]

maybe I am an eternal optimist, but working with the docs I have known, and knowing how compassionate most of them are, and how intensely competetive they are, I believe the docs in research will fight their best to find a cure. The pharmaceutical companies do sponsor a lot of reasearch for treatments, but in the major teaching hospitals, much of the research is grant-based, from private donors, the NIH, etc.

I am not sure if there will ever be a vaccine, and as stated above, viruses are very difficult to treat. However, I have one friend who has been HIV+ for 20 years, and another for 14. One major change over the decades has been the view of the disease as chronic, rather than terminal. Advances will continue.